On: What It's Like to Be a Sociopath

[ThrowawayP]

> "It’s kind of a cliché that CS attracts antisocial nerds."

Say what? CS attracts asocial nerds.

antisocial = commits crimes and harms society

asocial = introverted or unsociable

[__derek__ → ThrowawayP]

> antisocial = commits crimes and harms society

The GP conflates "tech workers" and "CS" but it's pretty clear that this is the target of the second paragraph: folks who are happy to do work that harms society without doing anything that rises to the level of mandatory treatment. That tendency has been a big part of the so-called "techlash" the last several years.

That said, I don't think this is unique to tech (cf. finance or politics).

[lotsofpulp → __derek__]

What is the definition of “harms society”? Does it include a lifestyle which produces more carbon and other harmful emissions at a 50th percentile or greater level on the global scale?

[raccoonDivider → ThrowawayP]

In my limited experience, both asocial and antisocial would match. People who don’t care about other people can also find it easier to harm them.

[spacebacon → raccoonDivider]

Failure to differentiate between any two words that are similar but completely different is part of the problem we face today.

[raccoonDivider → spacebacon]

But I did mean antisocial. Why do you think I can’t make the difference? I said that I believed there was some statistical overlap between the two.

[spacebacon → raccoonDivider]

I made no personal attack. See Genters comment above. Asocial people care deeply. Often too deeply about others. However from a statistical standpoint of external observance both could be investigated by the very people that exhaust asocial people daily.

Asocial people don’t have time to educate every single person with a grave misunderstanding about them that they encounter so they choose to keep their circles small and valuable.

Furthermore it is all on a spectrum as Aristotle told us ages ago but with an average life span under 90 (while deteriorating) we only merely approach true wisdom. Rarely obtaining it.

[genter → raccoonDivider]

Asocial people care about other people, we just find it exhausting to interact with them.

[raccoonDivider → genter]

I also fit that definition and wouldn't generalize. What I've observed is that the places that contain a lot of asocial people also have an above-average rate of sociopathic behaviors. This certainly fits my CS experience.

[faeriechangling → raccoonDivider]

asocial doesn't necessarily mean lack of care for others.

Take something like autism, there is NOTHING that stops autistic people from caring about others and being extraverted, but repeated social rejection may eventually make them withdrawn. Or maybe social interaction is just overstimulating and unpleasant. Such a person may do empathetic things like volunteer and donate to charity.

asocial people also suffer from their inept self-promotion abilities often making their virtues go unnoticed and uncelebrated. So if you're relying on personal experience, you're running into inductive reasoning problems right away. Whereas people with antisocial personality disorder might happily tell you all about the great things they do for everybody, even if their claims are total lies.

[tanseydavid → ThrowawayP]

Thank you so much for stating this distinction. It is important.